"For it is humanly certain that most of us remember very little of what we have read. To open almost any book a second time is to be reminded that we had forgotten well-nigh everything that the writer told us. Parting from the narrator and his narrative, we retain only a fading impression; and he, as it were, takes the book away from us and tucks it under his arm."
— Siegfried Sassoon (via oscillates)
"There are days when everything around one is softly illumined, not yet identifiable in the bright air but nonetheless distinct. Even what lies nearest is imbued with the tones of distance, is abstracted and only denoted, not revealed; and what relates to distance: the river, the bridges, the long streets and the squares squandering themselves among them are what this expanse has collected behind it to be painted as if on silk. All is simplified, carelessly conveyed by a few light-coloured planes in like the face in a Manet portrait. And nothing is negligible or superfluous. Somehow one gets emotional: All are attuned to one another, are valid, are part of the whole and form a completeness which lacks nothing."
— Rainer Maria Rilke, from The Notebooks Of Malte Laurids Bridge (via mirroir)
